Residents tell of heating hardships at Senate hearing

(David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)

US Senator Edward M. Kennedy talks about home heating costs at the hearing.

By John Drake, Globe Staff

Residents struggling to pay home heating bills told their stories today to a field hearing of a US Senate committee presided over by Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Margaret Gilliam, 70, of Dorchester, said at the hearing of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that she has been keeping the thermostat in her home at 62 degrees to stretch her heating oil supply.

Her last shipment of heating oil was paid for by Action for Boston Community Development Inc., the antipoverty agency at whose offices Kennedy held the hearing.

Gilliam said she is expecting to run out of oil within a week. "Where do I go after next week?" she asked.

Kennedy said a spike in oil prices, which are up 47 percent since last year, has arrived as many families also are dealing with increased mortgage payments. He called the financial pressures a "perfect storm of adversity" for families. "People are hurting who are playing by the rules every day," he said.

Beth Ann Strollo, president of the Massachusetts Association for Community Action, said residents have employed sometimes dangerous solutions to keep their homes warm this winter, including plugging in space heaters, opening their oven doors, and filling their oil tanks with oil they have carried in gas cans. Others are using credit cards to pay monthly utility bills with no prospect of being able to pay off those credit cards.

The Bush administration released $450 million in emergency fuel assistance yesterday. Kennedy called that amount "too little too late."

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